Sleuth 11/02/2011

Sleuth is a sideways glance at the city every week. We give £25 for every story/rumour and piece of absurdity you find for us to print. We ask for the money back if any legal action follows.

Marco Pierre White and beer not wine shockSleuth met up with Marco Pierre White(MPW), his business partner, George, Francis Carroll and William Lees-Jones last Friday. MPW was off to sample nine ales at JW Lees brewery on the northern border of Manchester, one of which would become his house special . It was a grand time which will have a full report next week. MPW was a gent, went about his task with purpose, thirst and zeal, resulting in a very balanced, quaffable, fruity ale being chosen. This will be called ‘The Governor’, named after a racing dog his father had owned.

Ale not wine for MPWDressed in a foppish coat, chef whites and mad harlequin slippers, MPW said to Sleuth, “despite the cooking I’ve done and the restaurants I’ve had, and that whole scene, I’ve never really liked or appreciated wine, I’d much rather have an ale, that’s my drink of choice.”

Astonishing fact about pigsHead brewer Michael Lees-Jones at JW Lees walked us through the beer making process. He showed us vats where yeast was working powerful magic on the beer. “Afterwards,” he said, “the yeast is given to pig farms. Of course, they have to make sure the live, active ingredient of yeast is dead.” “Why,” asked Sleuth. “Because,” said Michael, “the carbon dioxide produced by live yeast would be released in the stomach of the pig which would swell and eventually explode. Pigs can’t fart or belch. No release you see.”

That is the fact of the week folks. Sleuth told his ten year old son about the pig problem. The boy thought for a second. “So why do you call me a pig when I do it?” he said. He’d nailed Sleuth there.

Peter Saville and TwitterLynda Moyo of Confidential got a great quote out of Peter Saville, the city’s cultural czar about Twitter. He said: ‘Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist dissident, uses Twitter to speak to hundreds of thousands of people and communicate a message of question and change. These things can be used really brilliantly to achieve things you couldn’t achieve before. Or to say, ‘I’m at the hairdressers’.

Sleuth wanted to draw people’s attention to Saville’s wisdom, so he tweeted: ‘Brilliant. @lyndamoyo and Peter Saville on national identity, the Royals, the England kit and Twitter.’ The next tweet Sleuth received was from @Eliza and read: ‘Bravissimo now stocking their first ever L cup bra. L! Makes my back ache just to think about it.’

Ah Twitter don’t you just love it? This isn't a criticism of Eliza by the way, who is generally the brightest of city tweeters, just of the unfortunate absurdities Twitter throws up.

Massive C-bomb in SpinningfieldsTamar Smith, our chief executive officer in charge of Hip Hop and Grime interviews, came running in with the dreadful news on Wednesday: “Somebody’s dropped a huge C-bomb in Spinningfields,” she announced, “but I got a picture.” Why anybody would want to write Anglo-Saxon’s most brutal expletive in three foot letters on the Spinningfields pavement is anybody’s guess? But Sleuth reckons that the security guards scrubbing it off thought the person was a massive C@*T.

City is oursSleuth’s been trying to work out the motivation behind this graffiti. It’s just off Deansgate. Was it put up there by protestors on the student march the other day, by Manchester City supporters ahead of the Derby....or maybe by the Abu Dhabi owners of City themselves. Has anybody seen that Sheikh Mansour around town with an aerosol?

Cock of the NorthSleuth loved this piece of publicity from Castlefield Gallery. They’re shortly to display acclaimed artist Gregor Schneider. The text reads, ‘Schneider is a very controversial artist who subverts reality, turning everyday experience into horror. The piece we are showing, Mann liegend mit steifen Schwanz (Man lying with stiff Cock) is a sculpture of a dead man, half stuffed into a bin liner which will lay discarded in the gallery as a gruesome discovery (Sleuth loved the capitalisation of the letters). “Will he really be...er...aroused,” asked Sleuth. “Yes,” came the hesitant reply. Sleuth swears that’s the last life-modelling he’ll ever do. We’ll get some pictures of the fella when we attend the opening of the BORN AFTER 1924 exhibition.

Facebook and the Metropolitan pub fiveLast week we did a story on the popular Metropolitan pub being on fire. Turns out to only have been a small conflagration and the pub was soon open again. About ten minutes after posting Sleuth was intrigued by a feature of modern life that appeared under the story. We have a link to Facebook: this one read ‘21 people like this’. Sickos thought Sleuth.

Gordo and the Castle emails shockGordo, our fine food and booze writer, likes to spend at least one night a week in the Castle Hotel on Oldham Street until 3-4am. He's started to send out texts at that time. At 4am one recent morning the sales director's phone buzzed. Alarmed the man reached for his phone. There was a message from Gordo which just read, 'I hate you'. No explanation, no point of reference. Gordo doesn't hate the man at all. "Why did you do that?" asked Sleuth. "No idea," said Gordo, pausing, "although I do like to wind him up." Sleuth's advice: anybody who has Gordo's number shouldn't take texts from the man early on a midweek morning.

Confidential Love Tour, Monday 14 Valentine's DayConfidential editor Jonathan Schofield wants to romance you this Monday. He’s going to be conducting a sweet fifty minute tour of the love stories from the city...the epic ones, the ones that went wrong, the silly ones. There are old stories, recent stories and strange stories. He’s promising surprises galore too including a brief visit to an underground area where something might happen.Loudly. Everybody on the tour will receive a special prize from the wonderful Harvey Nichols. The price is £2, start time is 1pm from outside Harvey Nichols - to join the tour email jonathans@manchesterconfidential.com and pay on the day.

Talking total ballsThe Lib Dems in the city have been in touch laughing at this week’s visit by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. In an email titled,'Talking Balls', they say: 'He spun into Manchester and again denied that the recession was anything to do with the last Labour Government. He pretended that he had never said: ‘Nothing should be done to put at risk a light-touch, risk-based regulatory regime’ (Bloomberg Speech, 14 June 2006). ‘I believe we are right to avoid prescriptive, heavy-handed regulation in Britain’ (Balls, ibid.). ‘[The Labour government] will outlaw the imposition of any rules that might endanger the light-touch, risk-based regulatory regime that underpins London’s success.’ (13 September 2006).' The Manchester Lib Dem Leader Simon Ashley has a right laugh over this apparent contradiction. Strangely enough the Lib Dems have kept quiet about what so many think as the Coalition government’s inadequate response to bank bonuses, never mind the harsh cuts being imposed on the country. More balls perhaps?